


The Answer

by DivineShark, Windian



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alisha attempts to learn to armatize, F/F, Love/Hate Relationship, Tales of Big Bang 2016, backstory into the Scattered Bones/Windriders, basically all the stuff I wanted to see in-game, character development for Rose, child abandonment and slavery, depictions of violence and some gore, discussion of malevolence and the taint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6713134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineShark/pseuds/DivineShark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after she became the Shepherd, Lunarre is still giving Rose the run around. After an encounter ends badly and Rose is injured, Lailah and Edna go to Alisha for help. Rose is reluctant to accept it; Lunnare is a family problem, and one she'd rather deal with herself.</p><p>(Or:) Rose and Alisha flirt and fight a lot. Rose faces up to the fact that, perhaps, all the murder she's committed isn't entirely ethical for a saviour of the people.</p><p>[Story by Windian, with art from DivineShark.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She's thrown like a rag doll onto the ground. Rose pushes herself up on trembling, shaking limbs, only for Lunarre to seize her around the neck. With a strength that is no more human than he is, he hoists her up, hellionized flesh biting into her skin like sizzling acid. All she can see is Lunarre's maniacal grin, jagged teeth flecked with blood. She'd be gagging against the smell of burnt and rotten flesh if she wasn't choking. He laughs a long piercing laugh, and Rose can't _breathe_ —

Her windpipe is being crushed under Lunarre's hand, and the cry for help dies on her lips in a crumpled gasp: "Ali…sha…"

"Your pretty princess can't help you now, Rose," Lunarre spat, grin splitting even wider as Rose wriggled futilely on the end of his lure. "You always were a hypocrite. Clinging to that pathetic thing you call _morality,_ despite the countless numbers of sins etched into your skin. To think it would end like this. This is just beautiful."

Her vision starts to flicker. He hauls her closer to him, to whisper into her ear like a secret: "I'm not going to kill you too quickly, though. I'm gonna pick all your petals one by one, Rose. Then let's see how wonderful and perfect you really are underneath."

* * *

_Some weeks earlier…_

The feeling had been following Alisha all day, like a smell she couldn't place.

In the meeting about the latest border disagreements, she felt it as a draft at the back of her neck, sending hairs standing on end.

When she took lunch with Sergei, she heard it as a murmur ghosting against the shell of her ear, the words incoherent.

Discussing the trade agreements with the trade minister and the emissaries from Rolance, Alisha felt as though someone was watching her.

"I'm sure we can both agree on a fair tariff between our countries. Both Rolance and Hyland would both prosper from this. With our minerals and Rolance's agriculture—"

Alisha's words fell away. Someone was standing directly behind her. Yet when she turned, there was no one. She could feel goosebumps rising on her skin, yet the day was perfectly warm.

"Princess Alisha, are you feeling quite alright?" Sergei asked, eyes crinkled in worry.

"I— yes. Forgive me," Alisha said, her cheeks filling with colour. _What on earth is wrong with me? I must be getting paranoid,_ she thought. "As I was saying, with Rolance's agriculture—"

"This is pointless. In fact I think it's so pointless the point has grown wings and flown away. Can we go now? We could follow her all day and she's not going to notice us. I think I'm going to die if I learn anything else about trade tariffs." It was a disembodied voice, dry and strikingly familiar.

She stood staring at the emissaries, mouth hung open like a fish. They stared back at her.

"She has enough resonance. Let's at least try for a little longer, Edna. Besides, I've been finding all of this talk rather interesting. Who knew human politics could be so complicated."

"Ugh."

"Ah, Princess…?" one of the Rolance emissaries inquired.

"Please forgive me, gentlemen. I must attend to— to a— a very urgent—…"

"Chicken incident," the dry voice at her ear prompted her.

"—A very important chicken incident— wait, what?"

Edna snickered.

"Oh my," said Lailah.

She could feel the flush burning all the way down her body to her toes. Sergei was looking terribly concerned.

She was babbling, now: "It's very, um, incidental. The chicken incident, I mean. A lot of casualties—"

"That sounds most concerning," Sergei said, utterly serious.

She nodded. "Yes, so I must attend. Immediately. As in, right now. Um. Goodbye."

Ram-rod straight, arms swinging at her side, she made for the door. And as soon as it was behind her, slammed it closed and threw herself against it, burning face buried in her hands.

"Well, that was entertaining. I guess Alisha isn't so bad after all."

"Edna, that was _mean,"_ Lailah chastised.

The swallowtail of her hair flicking, Alisha flew in the direction of the voices, and found herself staring at Edna, snickering under her umbrella. Lailah was covering her mouth with her hand.

The scorching embarrassment was erased with the shock that _she could actually see them._

"Lailah! Edna!" she gasped. "I can't believe you're here. And— I can see you!"

"Took you long enough," said Edna, twirling her umbrella behind her back. "I stuck you with this thing enough times."

So that explained that sore feeling in her side. Here she'd thought she'd just slept on it wrong.

"I knew you could do it, Alisha," Lailah said, beaming, fingers pressed together.

"I'm thrilled to see the two of you, but, might I ask, why are you here? And where's Rose?" Alisha asked.

"Yeah. About that," said Edna.

Lailah twiddled her fingers. "That's kind of what we came to see you about."

Alisha could feel all the colour in her face draining. She took a step forward. "Something hasn't happened to her, has it?" Her hands balled tight, beginning to tremble. "She's not—"

"Don't get your knickers all in a twist. She's not _dead_ ," Edna said, and Alisha paused in her advance.

"But she's hurt?" she asked urgently.

"Mikleo healed her wounds, but they'll take time to heal. Mostly she's just exhausted." Lailah's eyes softened. "She's been running herself ragged tracking— well, that can wait until later. We've taken her somewhere safe, and Mikleo's looking over her, but what she really needs is proper bed rest. We would have taken her to an inn, but…"

"I see your issue." An unconscious body floating in mid-air might, understandably, cause some alarm.

Lailah nodded. "So we came to you. She needs your help, Alisha. In more ways than one."

* * *

They brought Rose back to Ladylake, to Alisha's house, and settled her into the guest-room. The damage wasn't good. A few months had passed since Alisha last saw Rose but it was as though she'd aged years in that time. Laid out on the pillow her hair had lost its glossy shine, and there were black shadows under her eyes.

Alisha changed the bandages for the nasty knife wound scabbing over on her side, and asked of Mikleo, "What happened?"

He folded his arms. "Do you remember hearing about Lunarre?"

She thought back, brow creasing. "I remember Rose mentioning that name. Wasn't he the assassin that was tracking me, back when Sorey was on his journey with you all?"

"Yeah, that's him. Not a pleasant guy. Well, he's still at large. He's been causing some issues, so we've been trying to track him down."

"The issues mentioned being him scarfing down humans and seraphs alike like they're box-lunches," Edna said, perching on the end of the bed. "He's kind of the opposite of pleasant."

She couldn't help but wrinkle her nose. "So what happened?"

"We thought we had him cornered in the ruins near here, but somehow he managed to get the jump on us," Mikleo said. "Attacked us when we made camp and weren't expecting it."

"It especially sucked because Meebo was making a really good stew as well," Edna said.

" _That_ was your concern?" said Mikleo.

"I'm a growing girl."

"Maybe I should have let you cook, Edna," Mikleo huffed. "Then we could have just left it behind and hoped Lunarre got food poisoning."

She turned to look at Alisha. "You see what I have to put up with. I even compliment his cooking and this is what I get."

"Um, I'm sure both of your cooking is very good…" Alisha said.

"Oh, would you like to try some?" Alisha wasn't keen on the grin that was forming at the edges of Edna's lips.

Mikleo waved his arms frantically. "Don't do it, Alisha!"

* * *

Rose slept for two whole days in the Diphda guest-room. Her wound continued to scab over, and Alisha continued to diligently change her bandages. It brought her back to her training with Lady Maltran. Like any of her life skills that were remotely useful, it'd been from her skilled hands she'd learnt from. A sheltered young princess, she'd been squeamish at first— not liking the blood, the smell, the screams. But her unsteady hands had stopped trembling when she saw what it meant to take a broken man and put him back together again. To go from a person whose existence served little point but to pout and curtsy and to become someone who was _needed_.

She tied Rose's bandage tight. Her eyes wandered to the girl's hands. An assassin's hands. For the first time, she wondered who had sculpted these hands into those of a killer's.

"You're doing such a good job looking after her."

Alisha shifted to see Lailah smiling at her from the doorway. The bed sunk as she settled down next to her, peering over at Rose.

"I'm concerned about her. She always seemed to be able to handle herself. To see her out of action is… more than a little peculiar."

Lailah inclined her head. "How do you mean?"

"I guess that… she's always so put together. She never doubts herself, or gets hurt." A small, self-deprecating smile. "That was always me." Looking at Rose's sleeping face, she thought she saw the reflection of another side of her friend. "So I never thought it'd be me looking after her," she said, laughing.

"Do you think that she never doubts herself?" Lailah asked her.

"Don't you?" Alisha said.

"Well, in my… admittedly rather long… experience with humans, I can't say I've never met one who never doubted themselves at all. Rather, they just hide it a little better than others."

"So you think there are things that even Rose has concerns and doubts about?"

"Oh, I have no doubt… that she has doubts." Lailah laughed behind her hand. "Actually… that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, Alisha."

"Oh?"

"I was hoping that you might be able to accompany us, as Rose's squire. At least for a short while."

"Me? But why?" Alisha asked.

"All of this has been hard on Rose. But she refuses to show it. I worry that if this keeps up…" Lailah trailed away. "You and Rose have a connection. If you're by her side, maybe she might be able to bring herself to sharing her burden."

"Do you… really think so?" Alisha had her own doubts about that. She had, in the past, made inquiries into Rose's past, to learn about her a little better. All of those inquiries had been shot down, laughed off, or she'd been clapped on the back and told, "Let's not talk about serious things."

She cared about Rose deeply, but in truth… there were times when she felt she barely knew her friend at all.

"Oh, yes. After all, you bring out sides in Rose I've never seen before," Lailah said, beaming.

Alisha flushed. "I can guess what side you're talking about." She'd tried to put the memory of their argument, with all the crying and wailing she'd done, to the back of her mind. And she'd very much planned to keep it there.

"I'd never seen Rose so impassioned before! It was splendid!"

Alisha flushed further, mumbling.

"What do you think? Would you help us? I realise what I'm asking may be dangerous, but…"

She shook her head. "If Rose needs my help, I cannot turn my back on her. After all, she came to my aid when I was in trouble. I'll do what I can."

In truth, she still wasn't sure that she would be able to help. But…

For Rose's sake, she would try.

* * *

There was a word for the way Rose woke up feeling.

It felt like the early days sparring with Brad, back when he'd been able to knock her onto her butt in a couple of hits. When he'd found her knocking around with the other ruffian orphans, with no home or family to speak off, she'd thought herself pretty good. She was charm and she was innocence, with a smile that could melt butter, could pinch a wallet from a pocket with no one the wiser. Up until the moment Brad's hand closed around her wrist and she realised she wasn't as good as she thought.

"You got nothing better to do than this, kid?"

She'd had a smart mouth, back then, and barked back some foul swear-strung retort. Brad had only laughed.

"That's better than I've heard from some sailors. You're not bad. But tell me, you wanna learn some real skills?" he'd asked her.

From that day, she'd had her own family, though with the number of cuts and bruises she got, it would be a while until she fully appreciated it.

"Ugh. Fuck me." Her voice was so hoarse Rose instantly regretted this outburst. _My throat feels like it's made of friggen sandpaper._

She heard the creak of the door and Rose pushed her eyes open, closing them again quickly at the bright and unwelcoming light blazing in through the curtains.

"Rose! You're awake!" She pried them open again to see Alisha standing over her and beaming.

Ugh. She felt way too crap to deal with so much enthusiasm so early in the morning…

_Wait the sun's up what time is it and wait why the heck is Alisha here anyway and hang on_

"How are you feeling, Rose?"

"Water," Rose croaked.

"Oh! Sure." Rose's hands felt strangely unsteady as she took the glass and drank, very quickly. Just how long had she been out for?

"Um, maybe you should drink a little slower…"

"Crap." In her eagerness to chug back as much as possible, Rose started coughing, spilling her drink all over herself. She stared down at her soggy nightgown.

_Wait nightgown what the frig—_

"Oh," said Alisha. "Well, I suppose you would have to change anyway."

"Is this yours?" Rose asked, pulling the soggy nightgown away where it clung to her skin. Alisha nodded.

"You really like frills, huh?"

It was exactly the kind of thing she could picture Alisha in. Though, admittedly in her daydreams Alisha in her nightwear was wearing rather _less_ —

Her eyes moved over to a steaming bowl set hastily on the bedside table. 

"You made me soup?"

Alisha flushed under her gaze. "It's very nutritious."

_Holy crap she's seven kinds of adorable._

"How long have I been out?"

"Let's see… two days."

"Two _days_?"

Alisha's eyes were wide as Rose threw the coverlet from her and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

"Rose, you need to rest," Alisha said. "You were badly injured."

"And thanks to your kind nursing, I'm all better. So thanks, but I've gotta go. I can't let that fox-faced bastard get away—"

The princess's eyes got even wider when Rose flung off the soggy nightgown, reaching for the outfit freshly cleaned and pressed sat at the dressing table. "Thanks for the laundry, by the way. You're a real pal, Alisha—"

"Rose, wait."

"I'll see you around—"

She was buttoning her tunic when Alisha stepped in front of the door, hands on her hips. " _Rose_ ," she said, lip set in that obstinate way that from Alisha… only meant trouble.

"You're not fine. Your fingers are _trembling_. At least have something to eat."

"No time. By the way, do you know where the others are?" She dug through her pile of effects, before exclaiming, "Hey, where are my knives?"

"You mean these?" Alisha held up what was, unmistakably, her missing knife-belt.

Rose's eyes narrowed.

"I thought something like this might happen, so I decided I would hang onto these," Alisha said.

Oh, she thought she was _so_ clever.

"So you're not getting them back until you've been fed and I feel you're well enough to go. Also, I'm going with you."

"Wait, what?"

She at least had the decency to flush a little at this. "You heard. Lailah and I have already agreed. I'm going to be your squire until we track down Lunarre."

"Lailah did, huh?" She would have to have words with her prime lord, later. Once she got her knives back from a certain obstinate princess. "You're not coming, Alisha. Now hand over my belt."

"Why are you being so stubborn about this?" Alisha huffed. "Didn't we travel together before?"

"Because this is a personal matter. I don't want to have to drag anybody else into my mess," she said.

"A personal matter? How, exactly?"

"That's personal, too." She took a step forward. If she could catch Alisha off guard and take back her knives, then…

Eyeing her, Alisha held the knife belt behind her back. Damn.

"Let's just talk about this reasonably, Alisha," she said.

"Good. We can do it over breakfast. With Lailah, so she can reinstate the squire pact afterwards."

Good God, this new and confident Alisha was terrifying.

"Screw it. You asked for it," she said, before she lunged.

It took approximately an embarrassing thirty seconds for Alisha to floor her, pinning her arms, her legs straddling her waist.

"You really think you're going to be able to take down Lunarre like _this_?" she asked, flushed and looking sufficiently triumphant.

"…Fine. You've made your point."

Alisha grinned from ear to ear. _What a giant dork._

"Maybe you were right about breakfast," Rose acquiesced.

"And?"

" _Fine_. You can come with me. Though I've no idea why you want to."

"Because I want to _help_ you, Rose."

"…Yeah, I know." She allowed a small sly smile to surface. "Well, this isn't such a bad situation really. I've not even had breakfast and I've already got a cute princess on my lap."

The speed with which Alisha sprung off her, face burning crimson, Rose had never even seen a person _windstep_ so fast.

* * *

"I cannot _believe_ you chose the same true name for me again, Rose. I looked that up in the library, you know. Iselvia Amekia _. Alisha the Crying_. Change it. I want a new one. You can undo the squire pact and form another one. With a better name."

"Oh, you mean like the one Sorey gave you: _Alisha the Smiling_."

"Yes, exactly!"

"Even though he just named me, 'Rose is Rose.'"

"Oh my God, I can't believe it. You're jealous over a silly _name_?"

"If it's so silly maybe I'll just leave your name as it is, then, _Alisha the Crying_."

This had been going on for some time.

"Are they _always_ like this?" asked Mikleo.

"Pretty much, yeah," said Edna.

"I think it's just how they show affection for one another," Lailah said. She'd watched the two of them stood on the Princess's veranda for the past twenty minutes, bickering.

"If you hate it so much, why don't you stay here, Princess?"

"Like hell am I going to stay here. I am going to help you, whether you like it or not—"

"This is going to… be an interesting trip," sighed Mikleo.


	2. Chapter 2

 "Let's see. So we've got life bottles and gels. Orange, apple and pineapple. Did you want any melange gels, Rose? No? We ought to get some panacea and syrup bottles too."

Alisha ticked off their shopping list as they trailed through the market at Ladylake, making sure they hadn't forgotten anything. Rose dragged her heels like a grumpy child.

"Can we just _go,_ already?"

"I have to make sure we're prepared and ready."

"I was born ready," protested Rose. "We've been prepared for _days_. And what's with that list, anyway? Who even makes a shopping list apart from little old ladies?"

Alisha just looked at Rose and shook her head, as though she'd said something deeply saddening. "Aren't you a _merchant_?" she asked.

"Sure, but it's not like I handle the paperwork. Eguille sorts that."

"What do you handle, then?"

"The executive decisions. That and the taste-testing," said Rose, sticking her hands in her pockets and grinning.

To be fair, Alisha supposed, the merchant enterprise was little more than a _side job_.

It gave Alisha a strange feeling of vertigo to think that she was doing something as casual as _shopping_ with the boss of a notorious assassin's guild.

But…

"What are you dawdling for? C'mon." Rose peered into her face. "Well that's a weird expression. What are you thinking?"

"Just that Sorey was right. Rose is Rose."

"Huh?"

"Let's go to the weapon store next. I want to see if they have the new ribbon I ordered in stock yet."

"You're so weird, Alisha," Rose muttered.

After picking up Alisha's ribbon, they begun to make their way back through the busy market.

"Hold on," Rose said.

Alisha flushed deeply when Rose stepped up close to her and started fiddling with her collar. She made a noise that sounded remarkably like a squeak.

"Geez. Your new ribbon was all wonky. I'm just fixing it."

"O-oh."

"Did you think I was gonna kiss you or something?" The shadow of a smirk. On a face that was far, far too close to her own.

"Of course not!" Though, a small part of Alisha thought— it wasn't like that idea was entirely unpleasant…

And Rose was so good with her hands, too…

She almost jumped straight out of her skin when Rose pressed one of them to her forehead. "Huh, feels like you're burning up. Maybe you should just stay here in Ladylake and let me go sort out Lunarre."

"Rose! Are you trying to get me to give up by _flirting_ with me?"

"Maybe. Is it working?"

Alisha fought off the flush that was trying to work its way up her neck. "If that's your best attempt, you'll have to flirt a lot harder than that," she said, all bluster and bravado.

Rose's eyes widened. She rolled her weight onto her other leg, eyeing her with a look that was almost _impressed_. "Is that a challenge, Princess Alisha?"

_Oh no, I didn't really think she would agree! What do I do—_

"Of course! Unless you're not up to it," Alisha said, hands pressed to her hips, determined jaw jutting out.

"Oh, you're going to regret those words," Rose said, with a shit-eating grin.

_Oh no I just made it ten times worse whydidIchallengeher I'm such an idiot-_

"Okay then. Let's go." Rose turned and headed towards the house.

"Huh? That's… it?"

"Flirting is far more effective when your victim doesn't know the attack is coming," Rose said with a wink. "That's the thrill of antici…"

"...Anticipation?" she filled in for Rose, baffled.

"…Boy, you really are keen for this," Rose laughed. "Anyway, let's buy a map from the turtlez before we head back. I've got to know the area around Ladylake pretty well but I'm still not sure about some of those caverns. Lunarre's a sneaky one, so we need to cover all our bases. Hm. He was always like that as a kid, too."

Still bristling with embarrassment it took Alisha a moment to process this information. Rose took several more strides before she realised Alisha had stopped in the street.

"What?"

"You knew Lunarre when he was a kid?"

"Yeah. Didn't you know? I grew up with him. If, ah, an assassin family is a family I guess he was like a smaller, annoying brother."

Like Rose's _brother_? Suddenly it all made sense why Rose was in such a rush. "Let's hurry and purify him, then."

"Pff. Purify? Tried that one already. He's way too far gone."

"You mean…?"

She shrugged. "It can't be helped."

She looked so nonchalant, hands buried in her pockets that Alisha couldn't help but exclaim: "Didn't you say he was like a brother?"

"Yeah, 'like' one. 'Sides. If it's evil… the Scattered Bones slay it."

Rose's smile was so lacking in empathy it was chilling.

Lady Maltran hadn't been her mother, but the moment her spear pierced her chest, hellion or no, it felt like her own heart had been riven in two.

Misunderstanding her expression, Rose said, "Hey, if you don't wanna get your hands dirty, stay here. I don't want to have to worry about you."

Alisha marched past her. "You don't have to worry about _me_ ," she said.

Lailah was right. Rose needed help more than she even knew.

* * *

"'Sup, Highness. Been a while. If I might say, you're looking royally good."

Zaveid met them at the bridge outside Ladylake, hands buried nonchalantly in his pockets. Alisha twisted her mouth. The last time they'd met, he'd been half dressed, too.

She couldn't stoop the question bursting from her lips: "Do you not _own_ a shirt or something?"

The man burst into guffaws of unruly laughter.

"Ah, sorry Princess. I would have worn one if I knew you were going to get all hot and bothered about it."

"That's…!" Alisha spluttered.

"Zaveid!" Lailah hissed from between her teeth.

"Enough," said Rose. Her foot tapped against the ground in impatience. "Just tell us what you found out, Zaveid."

Alisha swore she heard Edna whisper to Mikleo something that sounded like, "—yeah, cuz she's the only one allowed to flirt with her—"

"Alright, M'lady Shepherd," Zaveid acquiesced. A small, wistful shrug. "I checked out those rumours in Marlind but, no dice. But I did happen to overhear some travellers who mentioned a creepy, fox looking dude heading towards Aroundight Forest."

"He's heading toward Elysia." Rose stared across the the ridges of the valley. There was no more preamble. "Let's go," she said.

* * *

By the time they reached Aroundight forest and Elysia, however, there was no Lunarre. Only the bloody evidence and sorrow he'd left behind.

Alisha and Rose walked in upon the scene of sadness, seraphs from Elysia gathered round bloody scraps of clothing that have been skewered into the ground with a knife. The second victim Lunarre had stolen from their village.

Rose took a long look at the scene, jaw set in a hard line, and then turned and walked away.

Alisha hurried after her. "Shouldn't we try to help…?"

"We'll help by taking out the monster that did this." Rose didn't look back. Her step was determined.

In the forest by Marlind, Lunarre left them a similar present to find, speared into the split trunk of an oak.

In Glaivend Basin, a bloody locket dangled from the knife, buried deep in the cliffside.

"He's taunting me," Rose said. "He thinks it's funny, leading us on this wild goose chase, knowing if he keeps running we're powerless to stop him."

Sat around their campfire for dinner, Alisha felt helpless as she watched Rose pace, her body full of restless agitation.

They'd been travelling for more than a fortnight, and they were still no closer to catching up with Lunarre than when they set out from Ladylake.

"What I don't get is what the hell he's trying to achieve by this," said Zaveid, lolled out by the fire. Exhausted, like all of them.

"That's a good point," said Lailah, finger pressed to her chin. "You don't think he's trying to lead us into a trap?"

"Nope. He's not that smart," said Rose. "It's me. This is just a game to him. He's doing this to punish me."

 _To punish her?_ Alisha opened her mouth to speak, but in frustration, Rose kicked at the ground, letting loose a foul-mouth stream of swears a sailor would be proud of. She stalked off across the basin, and threw herself down at the edge of the cliff-side, legs crossed and digging through her pack.

Lailah was covering her mouth with her hand. "Um… well, it's understandable she's frustrated."

"What do you think she meant, to punish her?" Alisha asked.

"Weren't they friends as kids? Maybe she stole his bag of marbles or something," Edna said, curled up under her umbrella.

"Well he does seem to be missing a few," Mikleo quipped. Lailah giggled, but it was lacking her usual enthusiasm.

_No wonder Rose was so exhausted when we brought her back to Ladylake. This is awful._

She pushed herself off the ground. "I'll go talk to her."

"Rather you than me," said Zaveid, whistling low.

It was with some apprehension she approached the cliff-side where Rose was sitting cross-legged, cleaning rag in one hand. A nervous energy in her as she ran her rag over the knives until they gleamed.

"Hi," Alisha said, and when she got no response: "Would you mind if I sit?"

"It's a free country," said Rose, which Alisha figured was as good as she was going to get.

The sun was skimming low on the horizon over the basin, bringing all the earthy colours alive in hues of red and orange. A stark beauty, fitting for a place of battle and bloodshed between two countries for generations.

Rose added a bit of spit shine and continued cleaning.

"I… I think I know how you might be feeling, Rose," Alisha said.

"Hm. And how's that, then?" Rose said, in a voice that would be amused if it weren't so tense.

"Even if they aren't the person they used to be anymore… it's still hard to hurt someone who used to be a friend." She laced her fingers together, staring at her lap. "When I found out Lady Maltran was a hellion, it hurt. I knew her since I was a child. She was almost like a mother to me. And when she told me that that was a lie… that all along, her kindness was all false, it almost broke me."

Rose paused with her polishing.

"Yeah. About that. We should have told you, earlier," Rose said.

"I know you were only trying to protect me. You and Sorey… you thought I was too weak to handle it."

"That's—"

Alisha shook her head. "Your assumption wasn't wrong. Back then, I leaned too much on others… and then I'd feel guilty about being too reliant, run off on my own, and end up getting overwhelmed anyway."

So often she looked at Rose, so confident, so self-assured, and felt a pang of something mixed between admiration and envy.

In whatever she did, Rose believed in herself.

"Even now, I have to believe that what I shared with Lady Maltran wasn't all a lie. Something inside her— the thing that made her turn into a hellion— it got all twisted up, and robbed away that good part of her. The part of her that helped raise me into the woman I am. If that was truly how she felt, she would have hurt me long before. That's what I choose to believe, anyway. I don't want to believe all of it was a lie. I can't."

 _Even now,_ she thought, _I'm still so damnably weak…_

"Alisha." She lifted her head against the weight of emotion. "If caring about someone makes you weak, then you should be proud of your weakness. I wish… well, nevermind."

"Rose?"

"Things are different between Lunarre and I. Yeah, he might have been a friend once, but that was in the past. I don't feel any kind of conflict at all. This is just my job."

That's a lie, Alisha thought. She remembered Lailah telling her: all human beings have doubts. Her fingers dug under her translucent greaves.

"So you just don't want to tell me," she surmised.

"There's nothing _to_ tell," Rose said.

 _I want you to talk to me,_ Alisha wished she could say. _I want you to tell me about anything that's bothering you. I want us to be friends like that._

And yet she and Rose were never what you could call ordinary friends. Some days, she wondered if _friends_ was even the right word for them.

"I just wish you could trust me, Rose," she said instead.

"Now you're making a mountain out of a molehill. This has nothing to do with trust."

But it does, Alisha thought. "This doesn't just have to be your burden," she said. _I'm stronger, now. You don't have to keep things from me. My knees won't buckle under the weight._

Rose pressed an exasperated hand to her forehead. "Why does everything have to be so dramatic with you?"

She knew it wouldn't help, but Alisha couldn't help but demand, knuckles whitening in frustration: "Why do you have to pretend like everything is okay all of the time, when it's not?"

Rose pulled in her lips and gave up all semblance of cleaning, cool eyes flashing with anger. "If you don't like it, then go home already. Why are you even still here?"

"Because I want to help y—"

" _Why_ do you want to help me?"

This was nonsensical. "Does there have to be a reason?" Alisha spluttered.

"Of course there does. Nobody does anything without a reason."

"Then fine. Because I'm your friend— is that good enough?" And before Rose could respond, "—And don't you dare tell me we're not friends again."

Hands clenched tight, silently seething behind a tight smile, Rose said, "Seems like I don't have a choice in that, huh?"

That stung. But Alisha pushed herself up off the cliff-side, raising her head up high. "Just you watch me, Rose. I'll _prove_ to you I'm strong enough."

Rose stared at her like she was crazy. "You don't have to prove anything."

"Apparently, I do."

She turned on her heel, hair flicking over her shoulder, and marched back towards the camp. She couldn't talk to Rose when she was being like this.

Words never seemed to work with Rose, so she'd have to _show_ her.

* * *

If the quiet, far-too-casual feeling at the camp was anything to go by, their seraph companions had overheard some of her and Rose's argument. Lailah sat by the fire, very interested in her nails. Mikleo seemed entirely occupied with the mango sorbet he was making.

"Soooooo, how'd it go?" asked Zaveid, lent back on his hands.

Her shoulders were back, jaw rigid. "I need to learn how to armatize."

Everyone stopped pretending to be casual and looked at her.

Edna was the one who put it bluntly: "You can't."

"I have to," Alisha said.

"Tough cookie," said Edna.

"You just need enough natural resonance, don't you? Well, I couldn't see any of you last year, and now I can. Why shouldn't it be the same with armatization?"

"That's a fair point," Mikleo said.

Everyone's eye was drawn to Lailah, deep in thought. "I mean, it's possible," she said. "But…" she didn't get any further than that before Alisha was down on her knees, taking Lailah's hand.

"Please, Lailah. You have to teach me."

"What is this, Sorey, Mark II?" Mikleo asked. His smile was a little painful.

The memory came back to Alisha with a strange feeling of vertigo: Sorey, prostrating himself to the priest in Ladylake. It wasn't the first time anyone has remarked on the similarity between the two of them.

Alisha flushed, pushing herself up off the ground. Lailah's cheeks were coloured too. She laughed behind her hand, looking embarrassed but pleased.

"Well… I can hardly say no to a request like that, can I?"

* * *

"Damn it." Rose crushed her fist into the ground, dirt crumbling under her fingers. It didn't help.

_Why do I always have to be such a goddamn jerk to her? She was only trying to be kind._

Somehow, it felt as though they just brought out the worst in one another.

Lunarre was her family. Her problem.

Her mistake.

She didn't want to talk to Alisha about it, because _there was nothing to talk about_. Soon enough Lunarre would be dead and she could put all of this behind her.

The sun had sunk beneath the horizon and dusk wrapped the basin in its cool cloak. Rose pulled her legs up off the rough crumbly cliff-side and rested on them with her elbows.

This place brought back too many memories.

* * *

You meet him for the first time here.

It's not the first time smoke and ash have clogged these plains, and it won't be the last. There's a cheery fire burning at your adoptive family's camp and around it everyone's telling stories about their victories.

You're too young to really understand the consequences of war, or what any of this fight was for. But the victorious mood is infectious. You're happy your friends won: Brad, who's not your Dad but is the next best thing, even if his training sort of hurts; Aldan, who let you hold his massive axe one time; Mari, who scolds you for your smart mouth but sneaks you snacks before dinner when you whine enough.

When nobody's looking, you sneak away from the camp. Jedd's told you before not to, because it's something called "dishonourable," but the thief's instinct is still strong in you as you head down into the valley to pick from the bodies.

What do dead people need cool stuff for, anyway?

It's fascinating, if sort of gross. You stare for a few moments at a man who's had his head squashed like a watermelon before prising the ring off his stiff fingers and pocketing it. The lady who's been skewered with a spear doesn't need the knife with the cool, lion shaped pommel anymore, so you slip it into the waistband of your trousers. It's only then that you notice the black, funnelling clouds up on the hill.

Curiosity pulls you up the steep, crumbling embankment to the ruins of a village. Houses have been hollowed out, leaving the blackened cartilage of smoldering beams and walls like the skeletons of insects. You wander about a bit looking for anything to loot, but before too long your stomach starts to churn uncomfortably. Looking at the charred bodies makes you feel sick.

You feel like you've seen something like this before, a long time ago.

 _This stuff's all junk, anyway,_ you tell yourself, and turn your eyes away from the bodies and the forgotten memories that bob uncomfortably under the surface of your stomach.

You would have walked straight back to the camp and ingratiated yourself into Mari's lap like a cat, warming your cold bones by the fire, if you hadn't heard the sniffling.

There's a boy, curled up like a caterpillar when you poke it with a stick, his sandy hair dusty with ash. He's crying.

You're not sure why, but you hesitate.

As your footsteps approach, he curls further into himself. "Don't hurt me," he whimpers. "Don't hurt me, please. I'll do what you want. I—…"

You freeze. The words are like the bodies, a hook in your stomach dragging you back in time. "I'm not gonna hurt you! I'm not a soldier. I'm a kid like you."

He pulls his head out from between his knees, face red and wet and ew, all snotty. He seems a bit calmer now he realises you're not another soldier. You crouch down in the dirt.

"Was this your house?" you ask.

Slowly, he nods.

You realise you don't know what to say. So you offer him the ring you found, even though you planned to keep it for yourself. "I found some cool stuff," you tell him.

He stares at your outstretched hand, uncomprehending. "Why would I want that?" he asks, and offended, you pocket it again. You didn't really want to give it away anyway. You stand, thinking about the warmth of the fire and what Jedd's making for dinner. You don't like this place.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"Back to my family," you say.

"My family's all gone," the boy says, and you don't know what to say to that, but something in your chest tightens. You turn the ring over in your pocket.

"So come with me," you say.

* * *

 _Should have just left the brat there,_ Rose thought. Darkness had gathered around the hillside, but across the basin she could just about see the husk of Lunarre's village. She pulled her jacket closer around herself, and headed back towards the camp.

Before she reached it, however, Rose heard voices.

"I'm sorry, Alisha… I know you really wanted this." It was Lailah. Stealthy as a panther, Rose approached the clearing where Alisha and Lailah stood together, the princess's head bowed in despondence. "Let's try again tomorrow, when it's light."

"Be honest with me, Lailah… do you think I'll ever be able to?"

"I wish I could tell you. Throughout history there have always been humans able to armatize… and humans, who, even with resonance, who haven't."

"I just want to show Rose that I'm strong enough… that she doesn't have to do this on her own," Alisha said.

"I know."

Rose turned away, heading back to the flicker of their fire through the trees, turning up her collar against the cold.

Another stab of guilt. She'd always known that Alisha was better, and kinder than her. Bad luck followed Rose like a black dog at her heels. Nothing good ever came to the people who cared for her. Not to her parents, not to the Windriders, nor to Sorey. Not to Lunarre.

Rose wished Alisha would leave, before she got hurt, too.


	3. Chapter 3

 Alisha jerked out of sleep to hear Rose shouting.

"—Stop toying with me, Lunarre! Come out and face me!"

It was still dark, Alisha's head fuzzy from sleep. But at the word _Lunarre_ she was sat bolt-upright, wriggling and kicking out of her sleeping bag.

"Rose, what's going on?" she heard Lailah ask. A flash of light that was nearly blinding to eyes adjusted to the dark and the rest of the seraphs emerged.

"He was here!" With a finger Rose stabbed down at the bottom of her sleeping bag. Eyes adjusting, it took Alisha a moment to realise what exactly she was pointing to. Puncturing clean the prickleboar pelt bag: a knife.

And Alisha was still half-asleep, struggling out of her sleeping bag and _wasn't Zaveid supposed to be keeping lookout_ and

" _Goddamn_ it." Rose paced in furious, angry strides, and in frustration tore out the knife from her sleeping bag and hurled it away into the forest, impaling it into a tree. "I know you're out there Lunarre. Enough running away! Get out here and fight me!"

But only silence answered her.

Rose continued to pace, spitting and seething. Alisha exchanged a nervous look with Lailah, who approached Rose, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Rose… there's nothing we can do right now. We'll start again first thing tomorrow. Please calm down."

"How can I?" Rose demanded, and Lailah faltered, hand slipping away from her like a wilted leaf. "How can I calm down when this— this thing— is toying with me like I'm some insect?"

There was something frightening about Rose's anger, her face and hands twisted up in rage. She exploded into a foul string of expletives, kicking at her sleeping bag in front of her.

Alisha suddenly felt it. The unmistakably sharp almost metallic twang of something corrosive at the back of her throat: malevolence.

"Rose," she gasped, but her friend stalked away into the forest, pulling her knives from their sheaves and slashing at branches in her way, roaring for Lunarre to come and face her.

Her friends had to have all felt it, too. For several moments, there was only silence.

Then Mikleo said, "We need to go after her."

* * *

Hours later, when the constellations had rolled around and the moon was high, stark, white up in the sky, Alisha collapsed by the fire.

"Go back in case she returns to the camp," Lailah had told her. "We have a better chance of finding her."

After miles of stumbling around a dark forest, Alisha had quickly bit down her protests and staggered back. She stoked the dying fire back to life, adding on more logs and warming her hands, scratched and sore and numb from a trip over a fallen branch.

The fact was, as the seraphs' vessel, Rose should have been easy to track. The fact that she wasn't could only mean that… she didn't want to be found.

The hot taint of malevolence still lingered at the back of Alisha's throat. Arms encircling her knees, she pressed her head to them. The familiar feeling of helplessness welled up in Alisha's chest and throat like water.

If anything happened to Rose, then she… she would…

"Hey."

Alisha quickly wiped her face on her sleeve, anger jostling with relief inside of her as she turned to see Rose approaching the fire. Her hands were buried deeply in her pockets, eyes on the ground. The fire illuminated the scratch on her face and the rips in her tunic.

Alisha pushed herself to her feet, anger winning out over relief. "Don't you _hey_ me." Too many feelings were sloshing about in her chest, and her voice broke in the middle like a log in the fire, cracking in two with a _pop_. "How could you be so irresponsible to go off on your own? Don't you know how worried all of us were?"

Rose's face was impassive. She stared down at the ground. Anger rose further up into Alisha's throat. She grabbed Rose by her silly bolero, wanting to shake some sense into her, to _make_ her react.

"You _can't_ just go and do something like that. If Lunarre had found you without any of us, and he caught you off guard, if—"

But as always, her anger didn't last. Her words caught in her windpipe at the thought of Rose, hurt, and all those feelings battling in her chest overwhelmed her. Bolero crushed under shaking fingers, she dissolved into tears on Rose's chest.

There was a few seconds, and then Alisha felt the exhale of Rose's breath, and her arms closed around her, pulling her into an embrace. Alisha knew she was still supposed to be angry at her, but instead she found herself holding Rose tighter, tears soaking into her jacket.

"Sorry," Rose said.

"Promise me—" Alisha said, "promise me you won't ever do something like that again."

Rose didn't answer her, but Alisha found she was too tired to argue tonight. For now, it was enough to hold her.

"Let's just get some sleep. It's been a long night," Rose sighed into her hair.

When she peeled herself away and made to head for her sleeping bag, Rose's hand closed around her wrist.

She wasn't looking at her. "Would you stay with me?"

"Rose?" Something she couldn't express was caught in her throat.

"My sleeping bag… Lunarre kind of did a number on it," Rose said, tired and wry.

"Oh. Of course."

So they snuggled down together in the prickleboar sleeping bag Sorey helped her make a million years ago, and it only took minutes for Rose to drift to sleep in her arms, warm breath at her neck. No taint of malevolence to her now.

As exhausted as she felt, Alisha took a few minutes to look upon Rose's sleeping face, trying to unravel her like a puzzle.

Rose was soft and warm against her, fingers grasping a sleepy fistful of her shirt. Her lips parted slightly as she slept, eyebrows pulling together as she dreamed. Yet something cool lodged in Alisha's heart. Rose's arms might have been around her, yet in reality she was no closer to her than the stars above them, staring down at them like spears.

* * *

 

* * *

 

Alisha had to get stronger. She had to get strong enough to help carry Rose's burden.

Yet after practising amatization in the clearing with Edna that evening for two hours, the only thing she was carrying was the weight of stress, sat firmly on her shoulders.

She stood, wobbling on one leg on a fallen tree trunk in Volgran forest, hands outstretched at her sides. Edna had told her it would help her concentration.

"Just what am I doing wrong?" she said.

"You're keeping your mind clear, right?" Edna said, checking her nails. She was sat opposite her, umbrella propped up over like a parasol.

"Yes. Well… I'm trying," Alisha said. It was difficult, because as soon as she thought she was managing it thoughts would pop into her head like _I'm doing it I'm not thinking anything— wait_

"And you're visualising armatizing with me?"

"Yes." She was visualising _so hard_. Just like she'd been for the last two hours, wobbling around on this log.

"Well, I'm stumped. You could try rubbing your head with one hand and patting your stomach with your other, I guess," Edna said, and Alisha followed her instructions.

"How does this work? Another concentration exercise?" she asked, teetering precariously.

"Nah, I just thought it would be funny to see," Edna said, snickering as Alisha's balance gave out and she crashed face-first into a pile of leaves.

She pushed herself up, wincing as she felt another bruise forming. "If it's okay with you, Edna, I'm done with practice for today," she said.

"Sure I guess," said Edna, and Alisha let her weight pull down onto the log.

There was something that'd been on her mind all day.

"Edna… what is malevolence?"

Edna's eyebrows rose up to meet her hairline. "Why are you asking me something you already know?"

"I thought I knew what it was, until yesterday," she said. Nobody had said a word about that taint in the air, but if she felt it then Alisha knew it was impossible Edna hadn't. It was true that Rose hadn't been acting her cheerful self, but _malevolence_? "Edna, tell me the truth… how long as this being going on?"

Why, even now, did people feel the need to keep things from her?

Did they still not think her strong enough to bear it?

Even if Mikleo and Lailah skirted around the issue however, she knew at least Edna would be direct with her. "Soon before we sought you out," she said.

 _She needs your help, more than you know,_ Lailah had told her.

"But why?" Alisha asked. "Why is this happening to her? Is it because of how she's feeling about Lunarre?" Was it Rose's anger? It was true that anger, turned to hate could generate malevolence, and yet…

"Malevolence can be born from dishonesty. From lying to others to achieve your own purposes. But there is another kind we encountered once before, born from lying to one's own self. Being insincere about your own emotions."

And yet, when she'd felt the taint, Rose had been _angry_.

So if she was being insincere, what did that mean?

"If Rose is generating malevolence… that puts all of you in danger, doesn't it?" she asked.

"A vessel's malevolence can spread to a seraph, yes."

"Then…"

"Rose's level of malevolence is still low enough that we're not in danger. But if it gets any higher, Lailah will be forced to cut the pact. Snip. We won't be able to do a thing to help her."

Alisha's breath hitched in her throat.

"But that won't happen," Edna said, and there was a fierceness behind her impassivity Rose rarely saw. "We won't let it."

But— "How?" she asked.

"Rose needs to find her answer, just like you did."

"Rose's… answer?" Alisha asked. "About what?"

"How should I know? You'll have to ask her once she finds it. But… I sure hope she finds it soon."

Alisha sometimes had the impression that Edna was uncaring, but she wondered now if this was just how she expressed herself, and that maybe, like Rose, she had problems talking about her feelings. Alisha smiled a little. "You really care about Rose, don't you Edna?"

Edna turned her head. "It's nothing like that. We're running low on shepherds as it is. It's not like they grow on trees."

Just like she thought. It was hard to hold down the smile.

"Edna, please… I'd like to hear your opinion. How can I help Rose?"

"Just talk to her."

"I've tried. I tried talking to her about Lunarre, but she said she didn't care about him. I can't figure it out."

"Sometimes it's just easier that way," Edna said.

"Pardon?"

Edna was paying very close attention to the normin on her umbrella, and in particular how far his legs would stretch when she pulled them. "You heard me. If you don't care about anything, you can't be hurt by it."

"Edna? Are you…"

"I'm not anything," she said, words as sharp as the vicious tug on the normin.

Though she hadn't been there, Alisha had been told about Edna's brother, and for the hundreds of years she'd waited, hoping to find a cure for him.

Alisha stared at her entwined fingers. "Loving someone hurts, doesn't it?" she asked, softly. Lady Maltran's betrayal had hurt because of how much she cared for her. But if you could cast aside those feelings, then…

Edna made a disgusted noise at the back of her throat.

Alisha stood. "I need to talk to Rose."

She made her way back to Lastonbell. The sun was setting now, yellow light slanting in in ribbons through the trees, the bite of oncoming autumn at the back of Alisha's throat. The sentry at the town was now so used to the sight of those in the Hyland uniform he simply nodded her through.

Once, such a thing would have been unthinkable. It bolstered Alisha's courage and resolve. After all, if she could help soothe the decades long fight between the two countries…

She could help her friend, couldn't she?


	4. Chapter 4

Alisha's steadfast resolve dimmed somewhat as she stepped inside the inn and found Rose sat at the bar, knocking back a glass of something that looked suspiciously like whiskey.

When they'd stopped for supplies back in Marlind, Rose had shared a few drinks with Zaveid, and even cajoled Lailah into a couple of glasses of wine with her. Something Alisha was very happy to step aside from, retiring to her room to read instead.

But now Rose was drinking alone, with only the barkeep for company, currently in the process of pouring her yet another drink.

"Rose…"

Rose swivelled round on her stool. She grinned. Her eyes were bright. "Hey, you. How'd the secret training with Edna go?"

"Not very well," Alisha said, taking the stool at her right. "Nor very secret either, apparently. How did you find out?"

"I think you might be forgetting what my _main job_ is," Rose said, before twisting back to the barkeep. "Make that two of those."

Alisha's brows furrowed. "Rose, I really don't drink."

"So you're just going to leave me here drinking on my own? That's not very chivalrous of you, Miss Princess Knight."

Alisha bit down her protest as the barkeep pushed the glass across the bar to her, the reflexive, "Thank you," out of her mouth before she could stop it.

"Bottom's up," Rose said, and Alisha expelled a sigh.

"Very well," she said, clasping her glass with both hands with the trepidation akin to drawing the sacred sword from the stone. After all, it couldn't be that bad, could it?

As Rose drunk, Alisha took a mouthful and swallowed. And fell forward onto the bar, coughing, the liquid burning her esophagus. Correction: it wasn't bad. It was awful.

"That tastes like paint stripper!" she gagged, dimly feeling Rose pounding her fist against her back. "How on earth can you even drink that?"

"Huh. Tastes pretty good to me," Rose said. "But, uh. Have you ever drunk before, Alisha?"

"Of course!" Alisha said, thinking on the one glass of wine her mother allowed her at her eighteenth birthday dinner, and the pint of ale she'd suffered through at her knighting celebration.

Rose squinted through her bluster. "Uh huh," she said, unconvinced. "Lanzo, have you got any wine back there? Or, uh, anything lower than thirty proof?"

"Never took you for a wine drinker," the barkeep said, but he pulled out a bottle anyway, uncorking it with a pop. "Rosé for Rose?"

"And one for my companion, too."

"You don't need to go to the trouble just for me, Rose," Alisha said, as Lanzo poured out two glasses.

"What, you'd prefer the paint stripper?"

"Well… no."

"Then can it. If you're gonna keep me company, I want you to have a good time, too."

Rose smiled at her, that bright smile with a touch of mischief tucked into the corners. Alisha felt a warm, sunshine honey feeling fill her chest. She could almost imagine that the malevolence she'd felt from Rose had been a mistake.

How could something dark survive Rose's bright sunshine?

But then Alisha's gaze lingered: on Rose's knuckles, gripping her glass tightly, on how bright her eyes were.

And Alisha thought that even the brightest white light, immaculate and spotless, cast shadows.

* * *

Alisha could be so entertaining sometimes. Rose had seen the princess knight go toe-to-toe with a dragon, yet now she sipped at her wine like a nervous and skittish child dipping their toes in the water.

Rose could always tell she was getting tipsy when she started to focus on the duality of human nature and its hypocrisies.

Right now, for a few brief hours before duty called, she wanted to forget about everything else and enjoy the company of a beautiful princess.

And Alisha was beautiful, tonight. A week of camping and all the miscellaneous related dirt involved never suited anyone, but after a rigorous scrub up in the inn's tin bathtub her skin was clear and shiny like a cute pink fairy. Whatever armatization practice consisted of with Edna, a few strands of her hair had fallen loose, pale and flyaway.

Rose reached out and pushed it away behind her ear. She expected some reaction, but Alisha stayed very still while she did it.

"What are you thinking?" Rose asked, letting her touch linger.

Alisha's face turned very serious, eyebrows knitting together and lips pursing. Rose let her hand drop.

"If there's ever anything you want to talk about… I want you to come to me," Alisha said. "Anything at all."

"Sure," Rose said.

"I mean it."

"I know you do," Rose said, mouth hooked in an amused smile. Alisha didn't smile.

She could be such a serious girl.

"Then why won't you?" Alisha asked, and Rose stopped smiling. Alisha was looking at her intently, searching for something in a way that made Rose feel like she was about to get pat down.

This wasn't how she was hoping this evening was going to go. They'd already had this conversation, and it hadn't gone great the first time. She'd been hoping to just relax, maybe to take Alisha up on that flirting match she'd agreed to what felt like years ago. Capitalise on a kiss or two, even. Yet the princess seemed less inclined to play ball. She leant forward, hands against her greaves with that terribly serious face of hers that didn't suit a pretty girl like her.

Rose took another drink. Lanzo had respectfully given them some space and was chatting to another group of patrons at the end of the bar.

"Rose? Are you going to answer me or not?"

She pushed down the frustration that threatened to bubble to the top of her throat. "Answer what? There's nothing to say," she protested, fighting to keep her casual smile afloat.

"Listen. If you want to lie to me, then fine. For whatever reason, you've decided not to trust me. Maybe a part of you still sees me as a silly little princess. That's your choice. But don't lie to yourself, Rose. You're worth more than that." Alisha didn't lower her head as she spoke. She kept it raised, eyes piercing into hers with the force of her conviction.

She really had changed in the last six months.

Rose felt a pang of guilt. Because although she'd never put the words together, she had felt that. She'd been jealous of all Alisha was; everything that she could never be. Maybe she still was a little jealous now. That was why she took all of Alisha's conviction and sincerity and threw it back in her face. Secretly laughing at it. Envious.

And while she'd become weaker and lost her way, Alisha had found her path.

"Rose, tell me about Lunarre." It wasn't a question: it was a demand.

"What is there to say?" Rose said, hefting one last wry smile. But it was little more than one final futile wriggle of a fish hooked by the lure.

She suddenly felt very tired, shoulders slumping under the weight piled high upon them.

"I grew up with him," she said. She rested her elbows on the bar, gazing through the prismatic collection of bottles in the cabinet into the past. "Not that I liked him much, at first. I thought he was a weak crybaby. I was— well, you can probably imagine. A rough and tough tomboy. Honestly, I was pretty mean to him. I felt like he'd been lumbered on me. That's what Brad said, when I brought him back. 'He's your responsibility.' That was entertaining for about a day, before I got fed up of him trailing around after me and crying."

 

_There are tears in his eyes as you knock him back down into the dust, his blunted blade clattering to the ground._

" _I don't want to fight," he tells you, jaw set tight and eyes wet as you stand with your hands on your hips above him. He's being ridiculous._

" _We're a band of_ mercenaries _," you tell him. Technically, you're the rag-tagger along who helps with dinner and weapon polishing and the adults are the mercenaries, and you're only ten- but that's not the point._

" _I don't care. I hate fighting," he says, fists clenched at his sides._

" _Well too bad. Brad doesn't want to carry some useless crybaby around."_

" _I'm not a crybaby," he protests, ignoring the fact that there a big globby tears rolling down his face right now._

" _Do you wanna go back to living in the wilderness?" you ask._

"… _No."_

_So you pick the blade up, and throw it back at him. Clumsily, he catches it._

" _Then get up," you tell him._

 

 _Get stronger_ , she'd told him.

"Eventually, he did. We even became friends," she said to Alisha.

 

_Eventually, Lunarre learns to catch it properly. He even gets pretty good at it. By the time you turn fourteen and Brad finally lets you out on the battlefield, it's Lunarre that has your back. Years of sparring and he's your shadow, and together the two of you are unstoppable. You laugh together that night at the inn in Pendrago about "Rose's tough love" and Brad puts a hand on your backs. He tells you he's proud of you both and your heart feels full enough to burst. Mari tells you to order whatever you like and Lunarre and you stuff yourselves silly. It feels a lifetime ago since you were both orphans and victims, and tonight everything feels so bright, like there'll never be a rainy day ever again, and-_

 

"And?" Alisha asked.

"And it changed," Rose said. "Prince Konan used the Windriders as a scapegoat to further his ascent to the throne. Brad was executed. Mari, Aldan, and Jedd, and everyone else. They hung them from the gallows at Pendrago for something they hadn't done. Called us murderers. _Assassins_." She hadn't been able to do a damn thing about it. Hadn't even known until she saw the bodies in the square. She'd been so helpless, just like when she was a small child again, with the smell of _burning_ —

Rose's jaw was clenched so hard her teeth ached, knuckle bones white and raw in her lap.

Alisha's hands cupped hers, squeezing firmly but gently. They leeched away some of the tension. She breathed again.

"Counting Lunarre and I, there were only six of us left. Six out of twenty two. For some reason, everyone looked to me as Brad's successor. I didn't want to lose the rest of my family. So I made a decision."

Rose looked over at the booth near the window. It had been in this very tavern, on a very different night.

 

_Rain slashes against the window in great torrential sheets._

_Lately, in Rolance, there's been nothing but rain._

_You lean your head against the cool glass of the window, nursing your drink. Some kind of whisky— you'd asked Lanzo to give you the strongest thing he has._

_Tonight, you need it._

_You suppose that maybe you shouldn't be out in public drinking since you're some sort of outlaw now. But there's a certain kind of reckless abandon that most of your friends being dead brings._

_The thought that: how the hell can it get any worse?_

_Lunarre sits opposite you, his head in his hands. "It's not right, Rose. There has to be some other solution," he says._

" _How?" you ask him. "We can't get any legitimate work. This is the only way."_

_On the table, in the gulf between you, is a bag full of gald pieces._

" _We could go to Hyland—" he says. "We could find work there. We don't have to resort to this."_

" _I don't think even Hyland would approve of regicide. We're traitors, either side of the border." As well as that— even if you make it, there will be no guarantee you'll all be able to stay together._

_Lunarre hunches further into his hands. He's always been kinder-hearted than you._

" _So murder is the better option?" he asks._

_The woman had pressed the bag of gald into her hand as she passed through the alleyway to the market. "You're one of the Windriders, aren't you?" she'd asked. "I need your help."_

" _We're mercenaries, Lunarre," you tell him. "We kill people for pay. It's… kind of what we do."_

" _There's a difference from killing a man in battle than silently knifing him in the night," Lunarre protests, raising his head out of his hands. "War has rules. Soldiers fight, willingly putting their lives on the line. This is…"_

" _Ignoble?" you ask, and you rest your chin against the flat of your palm, staring back out the window. "Geez."_

_This sucks._

" _Alright. So it's murder. But is it really so bad if we're killing terrible people?" you ask. "That woman, she told me her husband was involved in that child slavery ring. Selling homeless children like livestock to the highest bidder. He's no better than an animal himself." In Rolance, children have never been more than cattle. Worked to the bone for a pittance and then thrown away once they were past their use. In this world, men like Brad were a rarity, not the rule. "Doesn't someone like that deserve to die?"_

" _You only know what she told you. How do you know he didn't just scorn her for another lover and she's out for revenge?" Lunarre asks._

" _Then we do the research," you say. "How about that? We don't take a job unless it's someone who deserves to die."_

_Lunarre looks at you like a stranger. "You're not a god, Rose. That's not something you can just decide."_

_Your knuckles tighten. "Prince Konan did, when he killed our family for something they didn't do. Why shouldn't we tip the scales in our favour, in the favour of good?"_

_The Windriders are gone, thrown into the wind. You're all that's left, the ragged bones and scraps, scattered like dandelion seeds._

" _We have no choice," you tell Lunarre, picking up the bag of gald. Feeling its weight in your hand._

_Eventually, he acquiesces._

_You were telling the truth: there's no other choice._

_You refuse to lose anything else._

 

"So you became the Scattered Bones," Alisha surmised.

Rose nodded. "And if it was good, we stayed our hand. If it was evil, we slayed it. It was a compromise. Eguille and the twins weren't sure either, at first. But in the end, even Lunarre, who'd been the most reticent, began to see the justice in it."

They'd become benevolent angels of death, sifting from the sand the good and evil of the world. No fame or glory to gain from it. Righteous judges, overlooking a stage they were no longer players for.

Or so Rose had thought, at the time.

"A few years later, we crossed the border to Hyland and begun masquerading as a travelling band of merchants. It was the perfect cover."

And even then Eguille had asked her: why not give up what they were doing? The Sparrow Feathers were quickly gaining loyalty and trust— perhaps not the fame the Windriders once had, but the closest next thing.

We could start again, he told her. Build some semblance of normality.

She'd said no.

She'd thought they were above morality. Perched squarely teetering on the see-saw between good and evil. Apart from the consequences.

_In the end, I was as self-delusional as Dezel._

"Lunarre was my brother, but I didn't even realise what had happened to him until I fulfilled the squire's pact."

Or rather: she hadn't wanted to realise.

If Alisha saw things as they were and went barrelling in head-first, things that were too difficult to look at, Rose had always turned her eyes away from. She hadn't wanted to see that the child who was once so timid he refused to fight back now _enjoyed_ hurting. That the boy with sandy hair who covered his mouth when he laughed was now a man who grinned when he killed. She thought instead of her brother-in-arms, her partner in hide-and-seek, how for months after she'd found him he'd woken, crying, from nightmares.

That weight pressed heavily on her shoulders, even now.

 

_You slam Lunarre back against the wall in the base. Fingers dig deep into his jacket, anger burning hot in your chest._

" _What the hell do you think you're playing at, Lunarre? You try assassinating the damn princess knight without my order, and now you're going after the Shepherd as well?"_

_There's no remorse in his eyes. Only that strange brightness you've been trying not to see that's shown its face so often lately. "I wasn't trying to kill him, Rose. He was just in my way."_

" _In your way of what?" you demand. "Why were you going after Princess Alisha? You know well enough we turned down the council's request. What is it you're doing when you go off on your own so often lately?"_

_Lunarre replies with a grin so wide it's eerie, sending an unwelcome chill down your spine. "That's a secret."_

" _Oh, a secret, huh? Well that's fine…" you say, easing off on Lunarre for a second, before you slam him back up against the wall. "Except it's not, you imbecile! I am your boss, Lunarre. You follow my command. From now on, you're not even leaving the ruins unless Eguille or I say so. Capiche?"_

" _I hear you,_ boss _."_

_Slowly, you let go of his jacket. "Don't let me down again," you tell him._

 

But in the end, who was it who let who down?

Rose's hands tightened around her glass. Why hadn't she _noticed_?

Every time they found one of the mementos Lunarre left, something in her gut twisted. Because they'd been left for _her_. Lunarre's way of saying: _Look at what you've done, Rose._

None of these innocent people would have died, if not for her. Their blood was on her hands. Lunnare was a killer she sculpted herself, and his own sins crawled on her skin.

"All the things that have happened… they're my fault."

Rose didn't realise her hands were shaking, until Alisha cupped her own around them.

"Rose… it's okay. I think I understand now. You made a mistake… but you're human. I've made plenty of them myself. It's not you who's killing innocent people. That's on Lunarre, not you." Alisha's hands gripped hers tightly, eyes shining bright with earnestness.

It turned Rose's stomach. Alisha didn't understand.

"Please, don't blame yourself for this, Rose. You'll only end up hurting yourself, and it won't help anything. And I… I couldn't stand if anything happened to you."

Such a sweet earnest princess. Alisha was far too good for her.

"Geez, 'lisha, you're gonna make me tear up here." She hoisted a crooked smile, and Alisha's eyes brightened hopefully. "Sorry for worrying you, okay? You're right. Let's all do this together,"

Alisha breathed out relief. "You can rely on us. Don't feel like you need to bear this burden all by yourself… alright?" She squeezed her hands, tightly.

"You and Lailah should really get together. She loves all this dramatic stuff, too," she said.

"Rose!"

"But yeah… alright," Rose said. Her eye was drawn to the clock hanging over the bar. Nearly time. "Sure is getting late. We should get some shut eye. Thanks for coming to talk to me, though."

"My pleasure!"

Alisha was so ridiculously easy to play, it almost made Rose feel a stab of something like guilt. Not quite, though.

She footed the bill, and when she turned around she saw Alisha by the counter, waiting for her. "Go ahead. I'll catch up to you in a few minutes. I wanna have one last look over our inventory."

"I see. Don't work too hard." She saw her hesitate, and then Alisha stepped up to her. Before she'd figured out what she was planning, Alisha pressed the sweetest, chastest kiss to her lips, over before she could even consider reciprocating. "Goodnight!" she said, colouring pink, looking surprised at herself. She didn't so much as walk as flee like an embarrassed schoolgirl to their shared room.

Rose stood, blinking at the bar, pressing her fingers to her mouth, the flush of wine lingering on her lips. It was almost enough to make Rose reconsider. To follow Alisha up to their room, to accept the tentative feelings the princess was offering her, and see where it would take them.

But not quite.

* * *

She met Eguille in the designated spot, up in the belfry of one of Lastonbell's famous bells.

"We contacted Lunarre, just like you asked, Boss. He says he'll meet you tonight in the Yder Cave. But he asked you to come alone." Eguille's brow was creased in concern. He'd already tried to talk her out of this.

"Good," Rose said.

That was what she wanted, too.


	5. Chapter 5

In the silence of the caves, the sound of a spider scuttling up the walls was a stone thrown into a still pond. The smell of stagnant water and moss, springy beneath Rose's careful steps, brought back memories.

The only light to guide her way came from the luminescent blue-glowing fungus and the thin wafers of moonlight, shafting in through cracks in the rock. The fungus wasn't edible: a lesson Lunarre learnt the hard way back when this place was their personal playground, the perfect spot for hide and seek.

Rose's steps were certain. She knew every inch of this place. Yet they remained careful: because Lunarre did, too.

She decided not to dwell on why he had selected this particular spot to settle their differences. It wouldn't make an iota of difference, soon enough.

She passed the giant fossil enshrined by the bedrock and approached the underground lake. _Plink. Plink._ The sound sheared through the stillness.

Lunarre was sat by the shore of the lake, skipping stones. He pulled back his wrist with a practiced motion, and set the flat pebble flying. It bounced across the lake and vanished into darkness.

It could have been ten years ago, Lunarre waiting for her to be done with her duties so they could skip stones and talk about whether Aldan's axe really was forged by dragon breath like he claimed.

"Lunarre." The word was her own stone. It echoed back at her.

Lunarre turned, a grin splitting his face open. "So you finally found me, Rose. Took you long enough."

* * *

Alisha woke to the feeling of someone gently but firmly shaking her shoulder.

"Alisha. Alisha."

She struggled to push her eyes open. For a second, she thought that Rose had finished with the inventory and was coming to join her. She smiled, leaning into the touch.

"Alisha. Get up already or I'll have Meebo conjure a bucket of water and pour it on your head."

 _That_ was enough to wake her up. She pushed herself up, blinking at Lailah and Edna. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Our lovely Lady Shepherd has gone for a little midnight stroll and hasn't come back," Zaveid said. Her eyes adjusted, she saw he and Mikleo were crowded into the room too.

"We didn't worry about it at first because we just figured the two of you had gone on a moonlight date," Edna said. "But, here you are."

The protest about moonlight dates caught in her throat as realisation chased the lingering tiredness away. She was wide awake as she demanded: "Wait. Rose is missing?"

"That's literally just what I said," Edna replied. But Alisha was already swinging her legs over the bed, reaching for her armour.

"Can you sense where she is?"

"Yes," Lailah said, perched on the bed with her. "She hasn't blocked us off this time. I can feel her to the north, past the Meadow of Triumph."

Surely, Rose wouldn't really be so foolish to try to face Lunarre alone, without support, would she?

Well.

"Whoa!" Mikleo grabbed Zaveid and forcefully turned him around as Alisha wriggled out of her shift and threw it from her head. A controlled fury shifting under her skin as she pulled on her tunic and buckled her armour.

"A little _warning_ next time, Alisha?" Mikleo said.

"We don't have the time to spare," Alisha replied.

She didn't think it was possible to be simultaneously so angry and afraid in the same instant. And yet here Rose was, blowing her expectations away again.

She just hoped they would be able to make it in time.

* * *

"Do you remember our old games, Rose? You never could catch me then, either," Lunarre said. He stretched, arching his arms behind his head, elbows clicking. His grin split his face in two, eyes hardly human.

When Rose thought about how this was the thing that was by her side, perhaps even for years, her stomach turned.

"Well, we're not kids anymore," she said. She drew her knives, footfall echoing in the still cavern. "What are you even trying to gain by all of this? What is it you're after?"

"What? Why, Rose, I'm wounded." A mock offended hand hovered in front of his mouth. "I wasn't trying to gain anything. I just wanted to play with you a little. Just like the good ol' days."

"Play?" she demanded. "You murdered innocents! Women and children! Just to mess with me?"

"Pfft. They were livestock, Rose. Mewing little lambs, good for nothing but slaughter. They weren't like you or I."

"Implying I'm _anything_ like you," she spat.

"Maybe you just don't see it. There are only two types of people in this world. Livestock, and killers. And you, Rose, are a killer."

In the end, it all came back to that decision, didn't it? "You make me out to be the bad guy, but you know I made that decision to survive. We killed as necessity. It was only you who always seemed to enjoy it a little too much." Her fingers tightened around the worn handles of her daggers.

"So you say, but you seem pretty eager to kill me."

"That's—" Rose raised her voice in protest, but Lunarre cut her off with wild, manic laughter.

"You always were a wonderful hypocrite, Rose. One of the things I've always loved about you. But you don't need to lie to me. I know you, and you know me. We understand one another." He stepped towards her, just out of reach of her daggers, staring straight into her eyes. "You were right after all, you know. We could be gods. There's no such thing as purity and malevolence in this world, not really. All there exists is the strong, and the weak."

 _You're not a god, Rose_ , a friend of her had once said, another lifetime ago.

Rose felt sick.

"Drop all of that ridiculous baggage you're carrying around and let's rule this world as arbiters. Take revenge on the world that abandoned us and threw us away like garbage. I know you, Rose."

He took another step towards her, outstretching his hand.

"Clearly, you don't know me that well, then!" As she spoke, Rose attacked, lashing out with a quick flash of her dagger, Lunarre stepping back with a second to spare. "I've never heard anyone talk more trash in my life. The only thing I want from you is to _die_."

Her quick steps and swipes he parried and dodged, stepping swiftly out of the way of her shimmering blades. He begun his own assault, and Rose blocked everything he threw at her.

"Did you seriously think I was going to join your side? Pur-lease."

Her blood was racing, sizzling under her skin. Fingers tingled with the excitement and elation of the fight as they danced across the cavern. All that sitting around, the restless waiting, and _this_ was what she longed for. This was what she was good at, what she was raised for, a blade in her hand before she could even read. Teeth gritted, lips raised in a smirk as she ducked and rolled, escaping the smile of Lunarre's knife.

Maybe he thought he was being clever luring her here by herself, but Lunarre had forgotten one crucial thing: that she was his boss.

The sweat was pouring off her, heat coming off in waves as she sent Lunarre sprawling to the ground. At last it wiped the stupid grin from his face, and as she advanced on him Lunarre scrabbled backwards, backing himself up uselessly against the cave wall.

Rose sent one of her knives twirling into the air, catching it with a cheery wink. "Guess I'm pretty good at my job, huh?"

No more bravado from Lunarre now. His eyes were wide, white with panic. Rose laughed as he pathetically covered his face with his hands.

"Please, don't hurt me, Rose," he whimpered. "I just wanted to play with you. To mess with you. I didn't mean it. Please—"

" _Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me, please. I'll do what you want. I—"_

The excited fizzing of her blood froze cold. For a second, it wasn't a hellion before her, but a child cowering in the blackened husk of his home, asking her not to hurt him. For all his bullshit, Lunarre had been right about one thing. Because she could have killed him, not even in cold blood, but with a smile.

That anger in her veins, that restlessness, Rose felt it for what it truly was: malevolence.

Her knives felt slack in her hands. She was the _Shepherd_ , and in the end, how much better was she than a hellion?

Lunarre was still snivelling. She sunk down onto her knees slowly before him. "Lunarre…"

Once, she would have told him to stop crying. Man up. Toughen up. And where had that taken them?

Lunarre could cry all he liked.

"I… what am I supposed to do?" she said. It'd always been inside her: that ice cold nugget in her heart. She herself had looked away from her own frightening lack of empathy, burnt away in memories she chose to forget. And yet…

It'd sat prettily framed by the word justice, disguising what the Scattered Bones really were: revenge, against the world that'd so wounded her. And what had it done? Apart from turn Lunarre into one of the monsters that'd hurt them in the first place? That had come so close to corrupting her, too?

Eyes locked to the ground, Rose didn't even know what had happened until she was lying on her back, the wind knocked out of her. She pushed herself up on trembling, shaking limbs, only for something to seize her by the neck. Choking, Rose chased the stars out of her eyes to see a sharp, grinning smile.

"Maybe I was wrong after all, Rose. Perhaps you are cattle."

With a strength that was no more human than he was, he hoisted her up, hellionized flesh biting into her skin like sizzling acid. All she could see was Lunarre's maniacal grin, jagged teeth flecked with blood. She would be gagging against the smell of burnt and rotten flesh if she wasn't choking. He laughed a long piercing laugh, and Rose couldn't _breathe_ —

Her windpipe was being crushed under Lunarre's hand, and the cry for help died on her lips in a crumpled gasp: "Ali…sha…"

She'd gripped her hands so sincerely, and Rose had flung it back in her face.

"Your pretty princess can't help you now, Rose," Lunarre spat, grin splitting even wider as Rose wriggled futilely on the end of his lure. "You always were a hypocrite. Clinging to that pathetic thing you call _morality,_ despite the countless numbers of sins etched into your skin. To think it would end like this. This is just beautiful."

Her vision began to flicker. He hauled her closer to him, to whisper into her ear like a secret: "I'm not going to kill you too quickly, though. I'm gonna pick all your petals one by one, Rose. Then let's see how wonderful and perfect you really are underneath."

Perhaps this was her punishment, fitting for her crimes.

Rose's vision flickered, black spots crowded her vision, and were blown away by a bright, white light. Rose hit the floor, the pressure around her neck gone. Hands clasped around herself, retching, sucking in deep breaths and coughing, she raised her head.

The thought occurred: that there must still be something wrong with her sight, because Rose could see _wings_.

Eyes widened as a heel crunched into the rock before her, pointed with gold. She raised her head further. "Alisha," she choked. But Alisha as she'd never seen her, cloak billowing white, bedecked with crystalline wings. A flowing tunic covered white-silver chainmail. Green eyes fixed in front of her, luminescent hair springing in a delicate coil as she stepped to Lunnare in firm strides. Rose shut her eyes against the hurricane that blew, knocking Lunarre across the room. He hit the cave wall with a crack and crumpled, blood pooling at his temple.

"That's enough." The voice was both Alisha's and Zaveid's, echoing powerfully. Rose forced herself to keep her eyes open as Alisha dispatched Lunarre, and the hellion crumpled into dust.

But even blinking couldn't keep the dark spots from crowding Rose's eyes. The weight at her chest was crushing. The last thing Rose heard was Alisha, shouting her name.

 

_You call and call, but receive no answer._

_You kick a rock in frustration, and stub your toe. It really, really hurts._

" _Lunarre, this is all your fault!" Yelling makes you feel a bit better, and you crouch down to rub at your injured foot._

_Blah blah blah, he's your responsibility, Brad had said, and so here you are, looking for the kid you wished you'd ditched at Glaivend Basin. This cave system seems to go on forever, and it's already been hours._

_You have to roll your eyes when you finally find him by the edge of an underground lake, and he's crying. Ever since you made the mistake of bringing him back to camp a fortnight ago, he's done nothing but cry._

_It makes something shift inside your chest in a way you're not used to. It feels bad, and you don't like it._

_But, Be kind to him, Brad had told you. He's been through a traumatic experience._

_You throw yourself down next to him, and sigh. "What am I gonna do with you?"_

_You play with the stones underneath you absently, and pick up a flat one. "Wanna see something cool?" you ask._

_Lunarre doesn't say anything, but he lifts his head a little. So much for an audience, but you figure this is the best you're gonna get. So you send the rock skimming across the water, jumping and diving like a fish swimming upriver. "Look at that! Ten!"_

_Lunarre makes a small impressed noise. "How did you do that?"_

" _If you wanna know how to skip stones, you've come to the right place. I'm the skipping stone champion. I skipped a thirty stone once, and no lie!" Technically, it's an exaggeration rather than a lie, and you are pretty awesome at it anyway._

_Lunarre picks up a round pebble to show you. "Will this work?"_

" _Nope! You got to pick a flat one. C'mon, let me show you which ones are the best…"_

_After picking out some good looking stones, you show Lunarre how to throw, correcting his weak wimpy underarm toss until he's got it. The stone he's throwing skips twice and sinks like lead, but Lunnare bursts into a massive smile, twisting hurriedly to face you. "I did it! Did you see? It worked!"_

" _Hm, yeah. That's not bad," you say. "Now see if you can do more."_

_Almost an hour later, and he's almost as good as you. You're grudgingly impressed. You didn't think he had it in him. When his eyes aren't all pink and wet, you guess he's not so bad._

" _You know… you act kind of mean, Rose, but I think you're actually secretly nice," Lunarre tells you._

_You balk at this. "Don't say something so embarrassing."_

" _I mean it." You've lived most of your life with homeless orphans and then hardened mercenaries… the sincerity in his voice is a language you've forgotten._

" _C'mon," you tell him, fighting away the flush trying to creep up your neck. "You're not gonna beat my high score with flattery."_

 

All along, Rose had known her answer.

"—ose! Rose, please wake up—!"

Pushing open her heavy eyelids, Rose found herself staring up at Alisha's face. There was something soft underneath her; it seemed like she was lying in her lap.

"Rose!" Alisha gasped. She'd phased out of her armatized form, eyes strung with unshed tears of concern.

"Not… not a bad way to wake up," Rose croaked in a hoarse whisper.

"Now this is why Rose is my kind of gal. Still flirting even after a near death experience," Zaveid whistled, leant over her.

"She can't be hurt too bad, if she has enough energy to joke around," Alisha huffed, but she was smiling now.

"Un….true… I feel like crap," Rose choked. Her neck was still burning, and it hurt to talk.

"Zaveid, could you give us a few minutes?" Alisha asked. "Mikleo and Edna must have almost caught up by now. Could you tell them what happened?"

"Sure thing, Highness," Zaveid said.

"What did happen?" Rose managed to ask. It was getting a little easier to talk, but she still had to keep pausing. Alisha waited for her patiently to speak. "You armatized, didn't you? How did you do it?"

"Apparently, a life or death situation is a good trigger for this sort of thing… I thought of you in danger, and, well…" Alisha coloured, but continued onward, "I couldn't allow it. It was as simple as that."

It's painful to twist her neck, but Rose did it anyway, turning to look at the pile of ash. "You killed him," she said. She felt a deep, weary sadness, filling her like still water.

"I did."

"I'm sorry. That wasn't your responsibility."

"It wasn't yours, either. I wasn't lying when I told you earlier you didn't have to shoulder this burden alone. I'm here for you. We all are. I mean it, you know."

"I know you did. I… Alisha…" It all welled up in her; such powerful sadness it crashed on her like waves on the shore. She pushed herself up off of Alisha lap. "I'm so sorry. I've been so awful. I don't know how you've put up with me."

"It's okay, Rose."

She shook her head. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. "It's not. You deserve better than someone like me. I'm careless and cold, and always try to act like everything is a joke. And—"

"Rose."

"And I never understand how other people are feeling—"

" _Rose_." She was shocked into silence when hands cupped her face. "Who you are on your worst day isn't who _you_ are."

"But—"

"Would you say I'm weak, and needy and a failure?" Alisha demanded.

"W-what? You're not any of those things, Alisha," Rose said. "You're strong and determined. And you're compassionate and sincere. You're an amazing person," she raised her voice so much she flinched, throat burning. "That's not how you think of yourself, is it?"

"I used to feel that way… until you helped me, Rose. You helped me realise it was okay to stand on my own two feet, and to make mistakes without thinking of myself as a failure. You helped me find my answer. Now I want to help you find yours."

"My answer?"

"What do you want, Rose? Who do you want to be? What do you need to do?"

Alisha looked deeply into her eyes, and Rose thought. She looked inside herself.

When she was a child, she'd wanted to get stronger. She wanted to be strong enough that she'd never have to be hurt again. And even with her friends and family, there was a part of her she'd kept aside, closed off, because to care allowed the possibility of being injured. To lose someone you cared for meant losing a part of yourself.

Lunarre's story had been so similar to her own. Another orphan, another victim. Something in his eyes had reflected her own, and she'd flinched away.

"I want…" Rose said, voice tearing, "I want to change. I want to be better."

Alisha arms closed around Rose, and she pulled her to her. Rose clung to her tightly, face buried in Alisha's shoulder.

"Tomorrow morning, the Scattered Bones will only be the Sparrow Feathers. Nothing like this will ever happen again," she said, words muffled in Alisha's tunic. "Lunarre was right, after all."

For all the evil that could dwell in human hearts, there was good, too. She no longer wanted to be an arbiter, standing aloof.

Alisha said nothing, instead pressing a soft kiss on the top of Rose's head, on the parting of her hair.

"Alisha… will you stay with me?" she asked.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I mean… will you stay with me, as my squire?"

With Alisha by her side, sharing her compassion, and her love, Rose knew she could become the best Shepherd she could be. Just as she'd helped Alisha stand strong, they could continue to support and inspire each other.

Just as, sometimes, the two of them brought out the worst in one another, Alisha could bring out her best, too.

Alisha pulled back, just enough so that they could be face to face. Foreheads touching, breath mingling, Alisha didn't hesitate. "I will."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a joint project by myself and DivineShark written for the first Tales of Big Bang. I wanted to thank the Tales of BB organisers for putting this on, and to an especially big thank you to the wonderful DivineShark for her lovely artwork. Check out more of her art here: http://divineshark.tumblr.com/tagged/my-art-x3


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